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jimmys-zeppelin · 8 months

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moonbeam

ch. v

table of contents

may 14, 1998

Sabrina entered Clarence’s with a food-full plastic bag in her hand. Lunch. And she was starving.

There were still a few finishing touches she had to put on the second of Jimmy’s three suits. She wouldn’t be done with the third until Sunday at the least. Luckily, she had peace of mind in knowing he would only need one of the suits for his trip. She debated giving him a call about the status of his garments…

Perhaps it would be too much.

But he said to call, her mind urged her.

“Fuck this,” Sabrina muttered to herself. Upon entering her office, the silence was serene. The tinny Lionel Richie playing inside the store was muffled behind the makeshift partition and she hummed along to All Night Long as she unpacked her Chinese takeaway. A few loud steps boomed up the creaky staircase—footsteps she knew well as Daniel’s—and soon his tall, lanky figure appeared into the office.

She muttered a ‘hello’ to him while taking her seat at her desk. Daniel did the same, waving to her with similar regard. He had propped open a book and smacked a piece of gum between his teeth. Fresh out of university, Daniel had a degree in Textiles; something Sabrina had no idea was a possible degree path.

The irony of the situation was that he was apprenticing under her. It gave Sabrina a silly boost to her ego.

She split her chopsticks and cracked open her Coke before she began to dig in. Not halfway into her first mouthful of chicken fried rice, Daniel slapped his book shut and an uncomfortable silence fell over them.

"I heard Jimmy Page was in for a fitting?" he asked.

Sabrina froze, slowly finishing her mouthful of food while the sound of her heart pounded throughout her entire body.

She gulped, "Yeah...last week."

"Fuck. Right when I catch a cold. How was he? What did he get?"

"Three suits. I've finished two of them."

"Seriously?" he exclaimed.

"Dunno why everyone's shitting themselves about this guy. He's just a normal bloke. Very nice." And kinda hot...

"Sab, I know you like the Spice Girls and that George Michael fruit but this guy was huge back in the day. I wonder why he'd even come to our store to be fitted."

"My dad and brother buzz off rock music so I know who he is, but he's a normal person. And he's a regular here, comes at least once every week or so. Guess he likes the savings," Sabrina shrugged.

Daniel's eyebrows furrowed, "How come I've never seen him?"

"Just unlucky, I guess," she teased, a grin spreading over her face. "I gave him your card, though. Mine hadn't come in yet so I put in a good word for you."

Excitement shone through his eyes, seemingly jumping for joy while stationed in his seat, "I could kiss you right now, Sab," then paused to think. "Did he leave his number?"

"Yeah, but I'd have to find the note I made with it."

A partial lie. Sabrina had written his number into her files for safekeeping, but she had left his receipt at her flat. She could practically see it laying beside her phone, the numbers begging to be dialed and given a chance.

"When you do, I wanna call to tell him the suits are ready," Daniel stood.

Sabrina guffawed, "Why would I let you call when I've done all the work?"

"Sab, what if he answers? It'd be an honor to tell him his suits are ready to be picked up."

"You sound like my brother right now," she chuckled. "He was practically on his knees asking for Jimmy's phone number after I told him."

"Please," he begged. He stepped closer to Sabrina's desk, picking one of the three fortune cookies she'd gotten with her meal.

“No,” she answered, “When you get your own famous client, then you can call them whenever you want.”

☽

The dial tone droned through the phone's receiver. Sabrina fought with herself over whether or not to press the final number to Jimmy's phone number. A sudden impulse decision made her press the number and soon the phone began to ring.

As her palms became increasingly sweatier, Sabrina could only imagine the conversation ahead. What would he say? How would he say it? What would she say? Suddenly, she felt transported back to her secondary school days when calling her crush's phone number. Then, she felt dumb.

She shook the anxiety from her mind and when the last ring was about to complete itself, the line clicked, "Hello?" his gentle voice said through the phone. Sabrina felt her heart melt just a little inside.

"Hi, this is Sabrina from Clarence's. Is this Jimmy?" Sabrina said the message as she normally would have to a normal customer. But she and Jimmy knew that he was anything but a normal customer and their interactions were anything but normal.

"Hi, Sabrina. This is Jimmy, yes. How are you?" Jimmy asked.

Sabrina smiled to herself, a step shy of giggling into the phone. "Good, thank you. And yourself?"

"Much better now," he paused to exhale amusedly. "Are you calling about the suits?"

"Yes, actually. The black and blue suits are ready for pickup, but the green one will have to wait until Sunday. I know you said you only needed one ready for today, but I tried my best to have all of them ready for you."

"That's quite alright, Sabrina. Shall I stop by this afternoon to pick them up?"

"That would be splendid, Jimmy."

Splendid?

"And will I have the honor of seeing you? I like to thank my tailors personally after I've seen their handiwork."

Sabrina felt her heart race in her chest when he spoke, "I'll be here until four as usual."

Jimmy paused for what seemed like a check of his watch. "I should get going then..." he chuckled. "I'll have someone come pick me up and I should be there soon."

"Sounds good," she paused for a beat, "People are buzzing about your appearance last week. I just spoke with Daniel over lunch and he was very upset to have missed you."

"Maybe he can alter some other piece of clothing I should buy and he can make my acquaintance. But I think I'm set on who I have altering my clothes now."

"Oh really? Who would that be, then?"

Jimmy laughed softly, "You, of course, darling."

"Oh—" Sabrina started, overcome with a short wave of shock at his response. "You haven't even seen my work yet and you're already praising it."

"You do a great job as a cashier. And you are head of alterations, aren't you?"

"That doesn't have anything to do with the work I do—"

"It has everything to do with it," Jimmy answered enthusiastically. "Listen, I'll be there in an hour. Can you wait for me?"

Daniel's footsteps came up the stairs once again. Sabrina was relieved the conversation had been coming to an end when he entered through the curtain. He furrowed his brow and signaled the phone with his fingers, silently asking who she was talking to.

"Of course I can wait, Jimmy," she said.

"Jimmy Page?” Daniel whispered loudly, nearly jumping for joy at the prospect. Sabrina nodded, turning away from him so as not to distract from her conversation.

"Beautiful...I'll see you, Sabrina."

Her heart fluttered, "Bye, Jimmy," she said. Upon placing the phone back onto the receiver, Sabrina let out a deep sigh, collapsing herself onto the desk.

“Not fair,” Daniel complained. He let out a distressed sigh before continuing, "I need your help with a customer. Are you busy?"

☽

Sabrina stood outside in the back alleyway of Clarence’s with Conner as he puffed on a cigarette. This was their usual ritual during the warmer months when she needed an additional moment away from the cash register or sewing machine. Conner didn’t mind, he enjoyed the extra bit of conversation while not being under the managerial watchful eye. She had had no qualms about the hobby itself, but the stench of the tobacco brought back nauseating memories.

Yet, despite this, she held an unlit cigarette between her fingers to further cast the illusion that she was on a “smoke break”.

"Why are you stood out here with me again?" Conner asked, not minding Sabrina as he flicked his bright green Bic.

The weather was too warm to be with a sweater, yet too cool to comfortably be without one. Sabrina rocked back and forth on her heels waiting to see if Jimmy's car would approach; an attempt at raising her body heat.

"Needed the fresh air,” she answered.

"You're second-hand smoking off me, Sab."

"Yeah, you should really kick that habit..." she said mindlessly, still stretching her neck to peer out into the quiet street. She rolled the cigarette between her fingers nervously.

"Why? So we can stand here and look like a couple of drug dealers?" Conner laughed, inhaling and blowing the air away from Sabrina's face, only for the wind to blow it back in her direction.

Sabrina rolled her eyes, "It's not good for you. Anyway, I'm headed back in; I'm starting to get cold out here."

"Is Jimmy coming back today?" Conner teased. "I heard Daniel talking shit earlier."

"About me?" Sabrina asked with a laugh. To his nod she said, "He's just jealous because he's the one who wants to be face deep in Jimmy's crotch."

"You say that like you weren't absolutely drooling all over him the other day."

"I wasn't!" Sabrina shot back. "If anything, Jimmy's the one flirting with me."

Conner hummed in disagreement, "I think you like the older ones and don't realize it, Sab. Just be careful. Men like him have whole mausoleums in their wardrobes. And those skeletons are dusty..." he said, taking another drag of his cigarette.

"How would you know?"

"You just know, Sabrina," he insisted. "What time is it?"

She checked the time on her watch, "Nearly four. Jimmy's probably here already. I'll catch you inside,” she said, passing Conner back his cigarette.

"Later," he replied, watching as Sabrina headed back out into the street to enter back into Clarence's through the front.

Sabrina was barely in the door when she heard someone call her name from the sidewalk. Jimmy, with his hands deep in his pockets, started on a light jog so as to approach her faster.

"Glad I caught you," he smiled, the corners of his eyes scrunching so all she could see were his pupils. He held the door for her as they entered back into the store; the regulated temperature bringing Sabrina some relief.

"I thought I had nearly missed you," Sabrina replied. "I was just in the back for a little bit. Taking in some outside air."

"Long day?"

"It's been alright. Nothing too bad," She began leading him back up into the fitting area. They bypassed her coworkers who seemed not to notice Jimmy—at least for the time being.

Jimmy's suits were hung in a changing booth where Sabrina had gone to retrieve them. She gave the zipped up bags a good pat before coming into the main area. "Do you want to take a look?"

He shook his head and reached out to Sabrina for the bags that nearly matched her height. They looked much smaller in his grasp. "I trust you."

"Do you?" She teased.

Jimmy took a deep breath, his exhale making it obvious he was holding back a laugh.

"Come on, Jimmy, I just want to see if you like them."

"I'm sure I will, Sabrina."

"Please," Sabrina countered. She batted her eyelids so as to draw a laugh from him. This time she broke through, once again getting the chance to see the delicate crow's feet bunch up by his eyes and to see the shake of his head as he couldn't believe she’d gotten him. It was only then that she noted his cologne again. The combination of it with the smell of the leather jacket he wore was sure to stir up any woman's interest.

He grimaced a bit at her begging, still sure (as he had said) that her work would have been to the quality that he had expected. But just to give her the satisfaction, Jimmy unzipped the bag and examined the navy colored suit coat and eyed it meticulously.

"Just as I thought. Wonderful work, Sabrina."

Sabrina nodded. "Thank you," she paused, "You can, uhm, you can call me Sab—if you want. All my friends call me Sab." she cringed as the words left her mouth, though, couldn't reverse them now.

"Sab," Jimmy replied, testing out how the name sounded on his lips. He played with the 'B' at the end for a moment, saying her name in full before fixing his gaze back onto her.

"You got it out of your system?" she smiled.

"I'm only teasing. I'll keep that in mind."

"Have you got any nicknames?" she asked.

"Just Jimmy. My full name's James."

"That rhymes," Sabrina chuckled. "Anyone call you Jim?"

"Not anyone that I like," he answered, his eyes firmly on hers the entire time, occasionally glancing away to map out the features of her face. She knew he had spotted not only the dark circles beneath her eyes, but also the smile lines that her mother nagged her about on a consistent basis. Jimmy held an amused look in his eyes, like he wanted to say something he couldn't.

Sabrina felt that she was unable to look away from him. His face seemed to have so much to offer her: dimpled cheeks further made charming by the combination of time and weight; Adam's apple bobbing as he took in steady breaths; the soft curl of his hair swiping his forehead like an older Superman trying hard to retain his image. All combined, she simply couldn't peel her eyes off him.

"Alright then," Sabrina said, "So you're happy with the suits? They'll serve you adequately for your time in America?"

"Absolutely. Thank you very much, Sab," he replied, nudging her with his elbow.

"You're very welcome. And since you've paid, you're free to go," she said, using her heels to begin rocking back and forth again.

"Alright, so I'll see you around then. I'll come get the last suit when I come back."

Sabrina nodded, "Safe travels, Jimmy."

He gave her a small smile and nodded. Jimmy's hand came out to touch her shoulder and it was as if all the cells in her body froze. Her breath hitched softly, then was a soft squeeze of his hand. Seconds later, he was gone again, and Sabrina watched as he trotted down the steps. She didn’t move a single muscle until well after she heard the jingling bells of the front door, signifying Jimmy’s exit.

☽

Later, Sabrina had come to find out that Jimmy had left her an extra hundred pounds as gratuity at the register. Much to her dismay, she pocketed it on her way out the door. A fleeting thought entered her mind that she should give him a call and reprimand him for his tip.

Then she debated if it was even worth it. She didn't want to make it seem as if she was too comfortable around him. After all, she barely knew him. That wasn’t to say she wasn't against getting to know him better.

The Northern line train rumbled along its tracks and Sabrina idly watched as people engaged in a myriad of activities. One woman sat with her nose in a book, her presumed son seated beside her, beating the living shit out of his Gameboy. Another man stoically read his Wembley Observer; the front page reading "Bid to Oust Tory Chief", something Sabrina would have to ask her father about later on.

She was nearly asleep on the train up to Brent Cross. Her mother had insisted she come for dinner as she had cooked extra and "wanted her daughter back home", if only for one night. Sabrina couldn't deny that a home cooked meal would do her some good. She could barely fry an egg without setting her flat ablaze so she was stuck with shoddy sandwiches and cheap takeout.

The train slowed to a stop at Brent Cross station, the tiled signs becoming clearer with each passing moment. Sabrina barely wasted a second following the opening of the doors before she was on the platform and weaving through the corridors she grew to know so well.

Her father's red Volkswagen flashed its lights at her upon her exiting the station. Sabrina made a quick approach to the car, entering the vehicle to see her father's outstretched arms.

Granting him the hug, Sabrina's father hummed contentedly. "Always great to receive a hug from your child. How are you Beanie?"

"No longer a child, that's for sure, Dad," Sabrina chuckled. "Where's Zach?" she asked as the car backed away from its spot.

"Home. Your mum needed help with something or other..." he trailed off, forgetting just why Zachary had stayed at home. He waved off the question. "You been alright, dear?"

Sabrina nodded, answering, "Everything's...going."

"Your mother worries about you being in that flat all alone. I tell her you'll be fine, but of course I worry about you, too, darling."

A pang of muted annoyance hit her, but she knew he had a good point. Nonetheless, she had to dispel their worries.

"I think I might get back into dating soon...maybe I'll have someone to keep me even more safe,” she lied.

"Oh, don't tell your mother," her father breathed a laugh, "She'll ask too many questions. Plus she's still holding out hope for Shaun..." he trailed off.

Sabrina scoffed. “What for?”

“Oh, come on, Beanie. You were together so long. Don’t tell me he’s dead to you already.”

That and more. “Shaun’s a prick,” she said, unable to hold back.

There was a tsk of his tongue, "Don't say that."

It was much quieter following the stunted conversation point about Shaun. Sabrina knew that what he had done didn't deserve her forgiveness; not for a very long time. There was no way her parents would understand his actions, either. This all left her in even more of a dilemma with her "beloved" ex-boyfriend.

"Heard any good music lately?" Sabrina tried. They were nearly home free, the familiar turns of the streets she had spent her childhood and teenage years on started to flood her mind with memories.

"Just my old eight-tracks. Stones, Clapton, this, that, the other. You?"

"I don't know," Sabrina trailed off, "Not much besides the radio playing at work. CD's, the like." She shrugged.

"Oh, I have a CD you may like. Remind me to get it for you before you leave," his fingers tapped at the steering wheel in time to the bass of the song playing quietly on the radio. They pulled into the driveway.

"Yeah? Who?"

"George Michael. I picked it up 'cause it looked interesting and it was quite good. Think you'll like it."

“What’s it called?” she asked, hoping the disc wouldn’t be one she already had in her collection.

“Something like Star Girl or what have you…it’s only got a few songs on it. But it has that song you like on it, Everything She Wants. An acoustic version of it.”

Excitement filled Sabrina’s chest. She had been putting off buying the Star People ‘97 single mostly because of her inability to justify the purchase. But she had also been unable to buy it because she could never find it in any shops near her. It was a wonder how her father had managed to encounter it in the tiny shops of Brent Cross. She would interrogate further once she had the disc in her hands.

As the two entered Sabrina's childhood home, the look and feel of the place always gave her an indescribable blast from the past. The wallpapered walls were the same as the ones that littered the backgrounds of hers and Zachary's childhood photos.

The shag carpet had been freshly hoovered—meaning shoes were forbidden until the carpet was trampled over again—the colors remained the very same, if not a bit faded from time. Sabrina gripped at the long carpet with her socks just as she had many-a-time in her teenage years when being lectured at dinner.

She could already tell this visit home wasn’t going to be the relaxing break from reality she was hoping. There was something in the air. And Sabrina didn’t like it one bit.

Everyone managed pleasantries as usual, but once around the table, the atmosphere made Sabrina more uneasy.

The clinking of silverware on ceramic put Sabrina’s nerves on edge and the usual delicious smell of Yorkshire pudding was rancid in her nostrils.

"David, did you get the radishes at the market like I asked you to?" Her mother, Georgia, asked.

The adult children very well knew the answer to the question. The two merely exchanged glances, hoping to god they would be spared from a passive aggressive discussion between their parents.

David looked up from his plate. He pretended a pondering look before looking regrettably at his wife, "Sorry George, I forgot," he swallowed, "Was so excited to see our Beanie that it slipped my mind."

Sabrina's mother fixed her gaze to her instead, "Sabrina, you'll never guess who I spoke to this week."

She broke off a piece of Yorkshire pudding and thought through all the people she could have possibly spoken to. She came up empty. "Hm?"

Zachary's foot nudged Sabrina's beneath the table. The knowing look he gave her made her heart sink into the pit of her stomach. Her expression turned in an instant.

"Shaun called this week," Georgia quipped excitedly, "Don't make that face! He said he wishes you both left off on a better note."

"Mum—" Sabrina started.

"Plus, he was so keen on proposing! And you went and clipped his wings, darling. He was so upset, the poor thing."

Finding that she couldn't possibly muster a response, Sabrina stared idly back at her mother.

"Say something, dear, don't just stare at me all bug-eyed."

"I haven't quite come to terms with him myself, Mum. I still need to do some personal reflection," Sabrina answered as calmly as she could manage.

"What does that even mean?" she threw her hands up. "I invited him for dinner on Sunday. I'd better hope you'll be in attendance."

Sabrina took another beat. "I'll have to politely decline. I'm busy this Sunday."

"Oh—" Georgia said. "You'll be missed, then."

"Sab, can you pass the mash, please?" Zachary mumbled. Without a word, she obliged, transferring the heavy bowl to her brother's hands.

The buzzing in her pocket diverted Sabrina's attention. She furrowed her brow, angling herself in her seat to better retrieve her phone from her jeans. "Sorry," she said.

Jimmy Page — mobile flashed on the screen back at her. Sabrina blinked once, then twice. The name didn't budge. Eventually she stared long enough that the call dropped. It was only then that she heard her heart pounding in her ears and felt the heat rising to her cheeks.

She wondered what Jimmy could have possibly wanted from her at this hour...

“Everything okay?” her father asked.

Sabrina couldn’t help a stammer. "Sorry, it was—uhm—a colleague."

"You're red as a tomato…quite some colleague," Zachary chuckled. Sabrina kicked him beneath the table and quickly put her cell phone back into her pocket. She reached for her glass of water, downing the rest of the liquid as the rest of the table sat in silence.

The feeling of her cell phone in her pocket was now an unwelcome intrusion. Conversation carried on between Sabrina’s family as she idly sat there. Stewing.

The assumption of Sabrina’s mother that she would be enthusiastic about dinner with Shaun followed by the unsolicited call from Jimmy was the one-two punch she didn’t know would be coming her way that evening. Perhaps this was the horrible sick-to-her-stomach feeling that had welcomed her into her parent’s home just half an hour earlier.

“Excuse me,” Sabrina said suddenly. Her feet carried her up the stairs, muscle memory guiding her back to her lilac and white striped bedroom. She swung the door closed, not quite slamming it, but pushing it hard enough that the door easily clicked into place.

“God,” she exhaled, letting her breath go as if she had been holding it in for much too long. Her face was hot and she pushed her thick, dark hair out away from her eyes. Her vision clouded over and she let herself go for long enough that her cheeks became streaked with tears. She wiped them away quickly, not fully allowing herself to have the moment she so desperately needed in light of her mother’s insensitivity.

Sabrina looked around her childhood bedroom, turning so she could reach for the sticker-laden light switch. The wallpaper that had been cut around it had been peeling for fifteen years, the yellowing beginning only recently. The warm glow of the yellow light placed Sabrina back into the mid-80s. The Raggedy Ann doll on her bed, the gargantuan Wham! poster on the wall above her headboard, and finally, her vanity. Looking at it now, she kind of wanted to take it back to her flat with her. The vanity that once held dozens of perfume bottles and all sorts of makeup products was now so empty it looked out of place in her old bedroom.

She sat on the pink suede-cushioned stool, crossing one leg over the other and holding her face in her hands. Her breath was the only sound she focused on for a long while. The steadiness brought her back to a better sense of calm. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket; an attempt to better examine what had just happened.

MISSED CALL

Jimmy Page — mobile

CALL BACK | EXIT

“Why the fuck…?” Sabrina whispered to herself. Her fingers ghosted between the arrow keys of “Call Back” and “EXIT” and considered calling him back before nervousness got the better of her and she clicked away from the pop-up.

Footsteps became louder as they squeaked up the staircase, nearer and nearer to her bedroom. Silence. Then, “Sab?” Zachary’s muffled voice came through the door. “You alright?”

In a rush, Sabrina stood and shoved her phone back into her pocket. “Yeah!” she exclaimed all too loud, “I’m—I just needed a minute.”

The door opened without so much as a knock, “I told her not to say anything about Shaun, that you wouldn’t—”

“It’s okay, Zach. It’s my fault I haven’t told her what happened yet.”

“Well, yeah, but you shouldn't have to. It’s over, she shouldn’t keep pestering you about him.”

Sabrina sighed, “I know. I know…”

There was a lull, Zachary staring at the floor, not wanting to ask, but desperately wanting to know…

“So, who called you?” he asked, a smile growing on either side of his lips.

masterlist | playlist | ao3

taglist: @keepcalmandcarryfire @witchesdust @jonesyjonesyjonesy @paginate54 @hejustsatisfiess @salixfragilis @modernloverss @reincarnated70sbaby @rebel-without-a-zeppelin @kyunisixx @blackberryblossom @jimmypages @foreverandadaydarling @lzep @n0quart3r @verrbena-in-the-air if you want to be added to the list let me know!

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manwalksintobar · 7 months

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if we’ve gotta live underground and everybody’s got cancer/ will poetry be enuf? // Eisa Davis to Ntozake Shange

dear ntozake,

I got sacks of mercury under the skin beneath my eyes either cried too much or i’m abt to the cool war’s burnin up my retina again does poetry start where life ends? i know i’m supposed to be cool: i wear corrective lenses that feature high definition tragedy. baby in the dumpster ethnic cleansing assassinations multinational mergers i’m supposed to shake my head write a poem believe in ripples. but i ain’t cool. i emit inhuman noises i imagine terrorist acts as i flick my imaginary ash onto the imaginary tray i imagine going insane with a purpose and writing it down feels sorta unnecessary does poetry end where life begins? berkeley girl black girl red diaper baby born of the blood of the struggle but with reaganomics and prince pickin up steam in ‘81 nothing came between me and my calvins 10 yrs old unpressed hair playin beethoven readin madeleine l’engle got scared in my pants when i heard this girl testifying ‘TOUSSAINT’ in the black repertory group youth ensemble i was just sittin in a rockin chair pretendin to be 82 and talkin like I knew all bout langston’s ‘rivers’

i wasn’t as good as her and i definitely wadn’t cool so i gave up drama and decided to bake soufflés zake you wda beat me up in the playground if we’da grown up together and you did eighth grade ‘he dropped em’ at the regional oratorical competition i saw another fly honey rip it this time it’s ‘a nite with beau willie brown’ i was bleedin on the ground i became yours no more soufflés i jacked for colored girls right off my mama’s shelf my mama fania who was sweatin with you and raymond sawyer and ed mock and halifu osumare dancin on the grass back in the day in you i found a groove never knew i had one like that did that monologue over and over alone in my room my bunk bed the proscenium arch 13 yrs old screamin and cryin abt my kids gettin dropped out a window didn't know a damn thing about rivers but i knew abt my heart fallin five stories you were never abbreviated or lower case to me you just pimped that irony that global badass mackadocious funkology you not only had hígado you had ben-wa balls in yr pussy

betsey brown on my godmother's couch nappy edges in mendocino at the mouth of big river spell #7 after the earthquake in silverlake the love space demands had to be in brooklyn yr poems are invitations to live in yr body love letters yr admirers dream they coulda written themselves no one cd find a category that was yr size blackety black but never blacker than thou you teased me into sassiness when i had none to speak of made profane into sacred but never formed a church sanctified women's lives whether we were reading nietzsche or a box of kotex we were magical and regular you many-tongued st louis woman of barnard and barcelona you left us the residue of yr lust left us to wander life as freely as sassafrass cypress and indigo and even the unedumacated could get yr virtuosity cuz you always fried it up in grease you built an aqueduct from lorraine hansberry's groundwater and it bubbled straight to george c wolfe you never read what the critics said and you scrunched up the flesh between yr eyebrows like everybody else in my family

but zake is poetry enuf?

i beg the question cuz you grew me up you and adrienne kennedy and anna deavere smith and all my mothers you blew out the candles on my 26th so when there's mercury under the skin beneath my eyes and the world ain't so cool do you write a poem or a will?

like leroi jones said if bessie smith had killed some white people she wouldn't have needed that music so do we all write like amiri baraka does or do we all get our nat turner on?

i beg the question cuz i wanna get my life right do some real work and i really don't want to kill any white folk i mean can we talk abt this maybe it's just my red diaper that's itchin but i still got that will to uplift the race sans bootstraps or talented tenths or paper bag tests this time we uplift the human race and i know the rainbow might be but is poetry enuf?

it's a naive question but i'm old enuf to ask them once in a while if we do finally unload the canon clean it out stock up on some more colorful balls ain't we only gettin the ones that are available at a store near you? doesn't the market end up setting the new standards anyway? is poetry enuf if it ain't sellin? if ain't nobody readin it? can poetry keep a man who can't read from droppin his kids out a window?

and how can i call a ceasefire to this cool war in stanzas of eights when we've declared poetry a no fly zone? we have learned to protect it and its potential politics like a mother shoot down anyone who might overdetermine a poem's meaning (while we poets divebomb everyone else's politics with impunity like we're the United States or something)

if poetry is just poetry we save it from the conservatives but doesn't that mean it's of no use to the progressives?

is poetry enuf? cuz that's all i'm doin. makin up stories on stage on the page keepin the beat and that's all my friends are doin and that's what a lot of folks my age are doin

but if we've gone and burnt up everything in the sky if there's nothin else to eat but landfill stroganoff if we've gotta live underground and everybody's got cancer will poetry be enuf?

my aunt angela says i can do my thang and keep swinging left hooks to oppression if i stay up stay into it stay involved just one form of praxis will do. it's just my guilt that thinks i need twenty-two what's enuf?

shouldn't i (or somebody) be our secular bodhisattva become a real power player but skip the talk show can't we stabilize, rekindle collectives and cooperatives and collaborations therapeutic communities that double as creative juggernauts a publishing house a theatre where the plays cost less than the movies get the neighborhood coven back together take dance breaks in the cubicles sing until the flourescent lights burst into snow i ask you because you changed me zake you changed thousands of women and i know poetry can't be enuf if you drunk

i ain't tryin ta walk off wid alla yr stuff and i got nuttin but love for ya so that's why i gotta know i'm sittin on my bed encircled by every book you've ever published they're open like fans marking pages with the flint of genius all i want is for this circle to grow so tell me:

is this where poetry and life are twins? i felt so crumpled up when i started writing you poetry seemed so useless and dingy next to all the bright red bad news but now that the poem is over i feel wide open like an infant of the spring just tell me how to feed this light to my responsibilities and poetry just might be enuf love eisa

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hamliet · 2 years

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Thoughts on daemon choking rhaenyra?

My thoughts on Luke literally, and Aemond and Daemon's characters are basically this:

I'm not opposed to Daemon acting like a jerk because he's a Byronic hero. He's the most Byronic hero George has written in ASOIAF. It's the most Romantic (literary) archetype in existence.

Doth no one know what a rogue is anymore? -me, being a drama queen

He's mad, bad, and dangerous to know, like the trope's namesake. He's also a sentimental wounded bad boy idealist. I mean look at what the man has named each of his children. His daughters are after his father and his mother in law (the book directly says it). His sons are both after his brothers, including the one who died extremely young. He's even got a hidden wife at one point and mad women in the attic!

So in principle, I'm not opposed. What makes me be like... hm. Is the proliferation of major writing issues that make me take back a lot of my early optimism, lol. In other words, I have no faith that scene was in there to do anything thematic or character-building. Instead, it seems like it's just there for drama.

Removing all agency from the characters is really like. Ugh. The problem in Game of Thrones, writers, wasn't just that they were sexist or that people did bad things. The first couple seasons were so powerful precisely because of choices. Even the choices made with the absolute best of intentions--see Ned trying to spare Cersei's kids and Catelyn desperate to save her daughters--had major consequences that couldn't always be foreseen. Good people making choices out of love isn't always rewarded. That's gritty and realistic, but that doesn't inherently mean the choices are always wrong, and it doesn't mean that they're right either.

Alicent misunderstanding Viserys instead of like, actually poisoning him? Lame. Aemond losing control of Vhagar? Lame. It's hard to care about characters when they're just subject to the whims of the world around them. That's not really a Romantic message. Yeah, Alicent hearing what she wants to hear, sure, Aemond underestimating a dragon, sure, except that's just not the human heart against itself. It's not ASOIAF thematically. "Whoops" isn't a compelling plot twist.

Again, a lot of these things could work theoretically without being "whoops." Much like the choking, I'm not, in principle, opposed. The problem is context. I just don't like how the show's simplifying the characters, so I don't have faith that they intended a message about overestimating how in control you are of the consequences of your actions. Given all their other creative decisions, it seems more a ploy to not alienate the audience, but the irony is it's having the opposite effect.

I'm someone who really likes Aemond's character in the book, and Alicent's. They're complex and fascinating just like Daemon and Rhaenyra are. They don't need to be whitewashed.

I'm very concerned that by whitewashing these characters they might remove other aspects of the coming seasons. But since GRRM said there'd be four seasons, I have some hope. If they erase Sara Snow because of Jace and Baela, or Alys Rivers and her kid with Aemond, like they erased Laena and Rhaenyra's relationship, I will be throwing hands.

#ask hamliet #hotd #hotd spoilers #fire & blood #daemyra #alicent hightower #aemond targaryen #daemon targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen

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grandhotelabyss · 6 months

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What are some of your favorite literary “what ifs” to contemplate? Keats at 55? Joyce’s “Paradiso?”

Those are two big ones. Keats would have been 55 in 1850. Is there any reason to think, based on what he could do at 25, that he wouldn't have written something better than In Memoriam or Idylls of the King? That, with his Shakespearean sensibility, he might not have approached something like The Ring and the Book? Our whole map of 19th-century literature would look different had Keats lived to fulfill his promise.

The "what if" in Joyce's case is more specific and less world-historical. He said, reports Ellmann, that he wanted to write "something very simple and very short" after Finnegans Wake, and I wonder what a simplicity following that kind of complexity would look like. Not Paradiso, perhaps, but also not Un Coeur Simple either, since he'd already done that in Dubliners and never repeated himself. What then? Something like Beckett's short pieces? And if he had pre-empted Beckett's counter-Joycean minimalism, what would Beckett have done? There's a different "what if" with Joyce too. What if he had pursued his dream (or scheme) of opening a cinema, had devoted himself more seriously to the stage, had gone multimedia? (My old Joyce teacher, acquaintance and biographer of Godard, used to wonder about this: Joyce as Godard before Godard.)

Then there's Austen, dead at 41 (my age), and already starting to sound like Woolf in her final novel. What if Wilde, dead at 46, had lived, lived in Paris into the avant-garde years, calling at 27 rue de Fleurus and devising his own versions of Surrealism or the Theater of Cruelty?

Premature author deaths are interesting, because some feel like enormous losses and others don't quite. Charlotte Brontë, not yet 40 when she died, had much more to do. She'd just finished Villette, a novel itself verging on the Beckettian. What would she have written had she lived into the 1870s? She was only three years older than George Eliot. A Middlemarch that grew out of the specific sensibility her truncated oeuvre demarcates might have been extraordinary, might have pre-empted, if not Beckett, then at least Hardy and (who knows?) Lawrence. Emily Brontë, on the other hand...while the structure and organization and irony of Wuthering Heights outdo even Charlotte's work for intricacy and intelligence, that book still feels more like a channeled myth, somehow collective and impersonal, than like part of a single person's corpus. I wish she had lived, of course, but maybe she would have fallen silent, having channeled her single vision, and then again maybe she would have drifted into Blakean private myth.

It's similar with Keats and Shelley. Shelley was only four years older than Keats was when he died, but he isn't mourned the same way. That's because his canon feels somehow closed, complete, a total vision rounded in on itself. As I hinted in my essay on Shelley, if you told me he'd killed himself after writing "The Triumph of Life," I'd believe you. Or if he'd lived but renounced poetry, like Rimbaud.

Then there are the deaths that didn't happen. Hemingway, killed by his wounds in the Great War at age 18—and no half-century of iceberg minimalism.

Putting aside premature deaths, I wonder about a Henry James who'd succeeded in the theater. First we would be deprived of (dare I say "freed from"?) his novelistic late phase and the dominance its displaced-theatrical formal thinking exerted over 20th-century fiction. Second, he might have extended Wildean Symbolism on the English stage to challenge the standard of Shavian social problem comedy. I haven't actually read a Henry James play, since he didn't succeed, and I understand the ones he did write are more conventional; I'm just imagining what the sensibility that wrote The Ambassadors and The Wings of the Dove would have done with a theater at its disposal.

(Also, what if Henry James's proposed collaboration with H. G. Wells had come to fruition—and had been a "scientific romance"? How would Jamesian Martians think? or a Jamesian Dr. Moreau? We might have had the New Wave of science fiction in the 1890s, not the 1960s.)

Moving forward in time, and back here in America, what about a Ralph Ellison able to rally his forces and produce a Jamesian or Faulknerian or Bellovian procession of novels right through the eras of Civil Rights, Black Power, and political correctness, challenging everybody's racial orthodoxies at every turn and, as the author of Invisible Man, unable to be ignored? Staying within African-American literature but moving back a generation: what if the mind that produced Cane in 1923 and lived until 1967 had kept writing novels, even if under the influence of Gurdjieff and Jung and Quakerism and Scientology?

I could think of more, I'm sure—what if Eliot hadn't converted to Anglicanism, what if he'd kept "turning"? or what if he'd taken the hint of The Waste Land and converted to Buddhism or Hinduism? imagine Eliot chanting sutras right along with Ginsberg in the Beat era!—but this is long enough. Feel free to contribute your own!

#literature #literary criticism #john keats #james joyce #brontë sisters #henry james #ralph ellison

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the1975attheirverybest · 1 year

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Oooh give us your thoughts on the New Yorker article if you're up to it?

Sure! I mean, I’m not sure I have anything original to say. Just that I didn’t like it that much. I guess it was as good as it could possibly be when written by someone who doesn’t seem to know much about Matty. I mean, I commend the author she did her research and seems to even have interviewed some of the crew. It wasn’t lazy journalism or anything. She just didn’t seem to get why Matty does what he does, and as a result, whenever she’d be quoting him, he’d come off as pretentious.

I know, I know. We joke in the fandom that he’s the most pretentious guy ever. But he’s really not. He’s very down-to-earth and humble and doesn’t take himself too seriously. I think people fail to see that. (By people I mean non-fans) like she did a lot of work to “contextualize him.” Talking about the George Floyd thing and him quitting Twitter, his memes on Instagram described as “makes fun of himself as well as his own fans.” Or whatever it was that she said. But….the more information she gave to try and give people more context, the more ridiculous it all sounded. What’s that thing she said about him silencing himself to make room for women or whatever cuz he put Greta on Notes? Do you see what I’m saying? I REALLY doubt that Marty was sitting there thinking “it is time for me, a man, to stfu so that a woman, Greta, may speak.” That sounds pompous. It happened a lot more organically than that. He was thinking about topical stuff. Struck my the environment discourse, Greta happened to the voice of the moment, he had this thing about releasing singles so that they are relevant, not in 6 months time when the record would be sent off for Vinyl because the news cycle changes so fast, it needed to be about what’s happening NOW. And it was Greta. Simple as that. Like it was the album ethos that affected his choice. It’s just that he’s usually irreverent and gets ticked off by outdated societal attitudes so it shows in his work and personality. But he’s not like deliberately being woke to make a point. So when she says he’s uncomfortable with fans praising his morality….but the article is doing exactly that. Do you see what I mean by she doesn’t get it?

The thing about Matty is, though he might deliver certain lines, jokes, or statements with a straight face, he’s not a serious guy. Like he doesn’t take himself seriously. That’s I guess why he comes off as a “troll.” He’s the sort of person that you have to tilt your head a tiny bit in order to see him clearly. And….she’s not tilting her head when writing about him. So, she captures SOME of his traits, but it’s foggy and out of context and comes off as kind of….I don’t know what the verbal equivalence of guy in black and white French movie sipping a coffee outside a cafe and twirling his thin mustache. You know what I mean? Makes him seem too overly philosophical when the first line in the article says that he hates the idea of artists being liberal academics.

And I don’t know who commissioned the article: whether it was jamie/dirty hit. Or The New Yorker approaching Matty, or as the swifties claimed “Taylor’s team wanting good press for him.” But if the goal of it was to introduce him to a wider public than his fans who already know him, then that’s not a great image of him. Makes me seem like the kinda guy you meet in your first year philosophy seminar. Also i don’t know that the New Yorkers subscribers are the target audience of the 1975 haha. I say that as a former subscriber myself. Keyword: FORMER.

IRONY! That’s the word I’m looking for!!! Matty is a pretty ironic guy, and The New Yorker takes itself

Too seriously to have fun and play with irony. That’s it!

Coulda just said those two sentences lmao. Anyways yeah. I hope this makes any sense???

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fructidor · 2 years

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frev people as taylor swift albums

debut - georges danton.

it’s a country album written by a 14 year old. i also have a weird headcanon that he listens to the most out of character music, and this definitely fits the bill. he would also dig the homophobic picture to burn /lh (i had no one else to put)

fearless - charlotte corday.

she was very fearless to kill marat. i also had no one else i could think of. she could be into love songs, i guess. i don’t know.

speak now - the better charlotte (robespierre.)

she is speak now. the badassery of it lmao. it’s not overtly badass, and still is sappy (a 19 year old wrote the album,) but it’s enough that it fits her bill. (better than revenge, enchanted, never grow up, long live.)

red - camille desmoulins.

he is red. oh my god. everything about him is just burning red [ ;)]. there’s definitely immaturity in this album, but its appropriate enough for him (im not a uwu believer lmao.) please also don’t tell me that songs like all too well can be attributed to failed relationshipsof him (and me shipping him with robespierre lmaoo.) and begin again for him and lucile :). the general style of it also fits him well imo. (holy ground, treacherous, come back…be here, all too well, begin again.)

1989 - jean paul marat.

if he’s not 1989, what is he?? truthfully i don’t know. it can kind of be irony too, in a way. 1989 is pure class, and marat is not. he also would not be on this list without 1989 lmao. he also is 110% bad blood & out of the woods. otherwise, it’s irony lol. (bad blood, out of the woods, i know places, clean.)

reputation - saint-just.

with all the depictions of him being cold, just from that sole description, reputation is the obvious choice. however, this isn’t sjs whole personality, nor is it reputations. reputation has more love songs than most of taylor’s albums, and generally has a softer interior than most people think it is (but they’re cool love songs and not sappy ones lmao.) sj is a person who i think fits this, also the general vibe of the songs on rep reminds me of him. (dress, call it what you want, new year’s day, don’t blame me.)

lover - lucile desmoulins.

i originally thought that lucile would be speak now, but in the end i thought lover would fit the most. diary lucile is definitely speak now, but i feel outside of the angst she is lover. songs like the archer and afterglow can also be contributed to her in this way. lover first dance remix for camille and her forever. (archer, afterglow, the man, false god.)

folklore - maximilien robespierre

he is the pure folklore. between the love triangle, the indie style of the music, and the reoccurring themes about anxiety and love just stringing together. the sophisticated language of the lakes can be attributed to him as well, and a general vibe of him is there too. don’t tell me that maxime didn’t hit his peak at seven too lmao. (seven, this is me trying, peace, mirrorball.)

evermore - élénore duplay.

evermore is a more upbeat folklore to me, one focusing less on anxiety too as well. élénore to me fits a lot of songs on evermore, and it’s quite remarkable to name them all lol. right where you left me & evermore after maxime died, coney island and ivy for vibes. cowboy like me for…cowboys /j. no body, no crime because she would kill for a friend.

#lisa rambles #frev #french revolution #robespierre #desmoulins #danton #saint-just #marat #éléonore duplay #charlotte robespierre #charlotte corday #camille desmoulins #history #taylor swift #swift #swiftie #this is not my best work #but that’s okay

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histoireettralala · 2 years

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Mademoiselle Des Œillets: "this inimitable actress."

Another actress in the same generation who was not quite a star, although she played the right roles and was considered a fine actress, was Alix Faviot, Mlle Des Œillets [..]

In 1649 she was living on the rue Vieille-du-Temple, strongly suggesting that she was performing at the Marais; she was there again in 1660, when she signed the lease of the theatre. In 1662 she played the role of Viriate in Pierre Corneille's Sertorius, which opened in February to great success. Mlle Des Œillets had some sort of special connection to the play, which may have been written to feature her. In any case, Corneille wrote to the abbé de Pure on November 3, 1661, asking his opinion of the unfinished play. "I have asked Mlle Des Œillets," he writes, "who is in possession of it, to show it to you whenever you want."

[..]

Sophonisbe, starring Mlle Des Œillets, opened at the Hôtel de Bourgogne at the height of the season in January 1663. Sophonisbe was the apex of Mlle Des Œillets' career. Donneau de Visé describes her success in glowing terms:

"This role, which is the most predominant in the play, is played by Mlle Des Œillets, who is one of the premier actresses in the world, and who maintains the great reputation that she has enjoyed for a long time. I will not eulogize her, because I could not eulogize her enough. I will be content only to say that she plays this role divinely, better than can be imagined; that M. Corneille has to be obliged to her for it, and that if you go to see this play only to see this inimitable actress, you will leave completely satisfied."

We can conclude that Mlle Des Œillets had many of the attributes of a star: audiences were advised to see her whatever the vehicle, and an important playwright wrote roles for her. She also appears to have been empowered through her connection to Corneille. And she was a very god actress. On the other hand, she was not especially beautiful or sexually alluring, and she was not a celebrity. She was a Meryl Streep and not a Marilyn Monroe.

Georges Forestier, in his biography of Racine, makes a compelling argument that Mlle Du Parc, the beautiful celebrity actress who played the role of Andromaque, which was written for her, was far less accomplished on stage than Mlle Des Œillets, who played Hermione. "The character of Andromaque", he proposes

"is relatively uniform; everything is lamentation. While the great role, the role with multiple facets, alternating the grandeur of a princess and the innocence of a young girl, tears and haughty irony, the abasement of love and at the last destructive vehemence, in short the role that, as one said in the seventeenth century, would "faire le brouhaha dans la salle" [that is, "bring down the house"] was that of Hermione. And rightly, the character of Hermione went to Mlle Des Œillets, the great tragic actress."

The death of Mlle Du Parc in 1668 [..] was a sensational scandal; the death of Mlle Des Œillets two years later was a loss to the theatre and a cause for grief, but her funeral was not a mob scene, nor did a handsome young playwright hang, half dead, over her coffin. [..]

In other words, although a great actress with a wonderful voice, Mlle Des Œillets was not seductive. Nor was she an object of scandal. Her biographers reports no evidence of any "adventures" on her part, although she was widowed for more than twenty years.

Virginia Scott- Women on the Stage in Early Modern France: 1540-1750.

#xvii #virginia scott #women on the stage in early modern france #alix faviot #mademoiselle des œillets #pierre corneille #jean racine #mademoiselle du parc #play: andromaque #play: sophonisbe

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liugeaux · 9 days

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Greatest Songs Ever - Part 24 (This is Getting Easy)

Part 24 is here already. Songs have been hitting me left and right, and the best course of action is to get to anointing them ASAP.

I really feel like I'm developing an ear for songs that deserve the list. Some of them are songs I've loved for years while others I just stumbled upon and have fallen in love with. Either way, as always, this list has no skips, enjoy.

1983 "Always Something There to Remind Me" - Naked Eyes

A cover song that was first made famous by Lou Johnson and Sandie Shaw with two different versions in '64 and again in '69 by R.B. Greaves found new life in '83 when English New Wave group Naked Eyes recorded the most 80s version they possibly could. The original song though was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for Deion Warwick. Naked Eyes' version stands as the most ear-catching and the one with the longest legs. It could be the heavy keys or the synth drums, but this version evokes a very specific time and place. The icing on this cake is how blisteringly catchy the lyrics are.

1969 "Here Comes the Sun" - The Beatles

I've been trying to figure out how to include Beatles songs in this project. I definitely realize how absurd it is that I made it to 24 lists without a single Fab Four track. I thought maybe an all Beatles list was the way to go, or maybe a list with 5 Beatles tracks and 5 from another artist, but none of the ideas were really good enough. So here I am with the 232nd track, I'm finally choosing an iconic George Harrison masterpiece. "Here Comes the Sun" really speaks for itself, but I'll try to add to the conversation a bit. When people say "Ringo is a fantastic drummer" I imagine this song is part of their evidence. His percussion is slight and complimentary, while George's roller-coaster guitar part creates an adventure through what is otherwise a straightforward pop song. Late career Beatles gets whacky and weird at times, "Here Comes the Sun" is a grounded and aware anthem of hope, that is timeless in every sense of the word.

1996 "Return of the Mack" - Mark Morrison

Through his goose-like voice Mark Morrison spits so much swagger on "Return of the Mack" its hard to believe its a serious song performed with absolutely no irony. It's totally the song that should have been written by The Lonely Island for a movie about a fake R&B star. With that said, it works. It works, SO WELL! I feel cooler when I sing "Return of the Mack" and I have no business feeling cool.

2017 "Don't Stop" - Nothing More

The Jacoby Shaddix collab version of this song almost made the last list, but as much as I love Papa Roach, the original version is much better. Nothing More captures the feeling of crowd energy building right before a pit breaks out and then delivers just enough rage to keep the energy up and the pit at bay. Then right as the crowd can't take it anymore, at the 3:19 mark they drop the deepest funkiest bass drop that will vibrate your kidneys out of your ears. This drop signifies IT'S GO TIME! The whole thing is edging for metal concerts. You should be exhausted when "Don't Stop" is over, if you're not, then you're doing it wrong.

1972 "Let's Stay Together" - Al Green

Soul music, I don't really know much about it, but I love "Let's Stay Together". Not only is it a great needle drop in whatever it's played during, but it also has some of the most satisfying quirks sprinkled throughout. Most of the song is Green chewing up as much vocal delivery as possible with the backup singers bridging any gaps in his emotion-filled performance. The chorus of "Whether times are good or bad, happy or sad" kinda sneaks in unexpectedly. My favorite quirk is the duck-like trumpets that pop in at seemingly random times. They are so oddly placed and so loudly mixed, they are jarring. I love them, they keep the listener on their toes.

2005 "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" - Dropkick Murphys

I guess while we're talking about needle drops, this Dropkick Murphys song is always a good time when used in film. This song has both bag-pipes and an accordion and introduced me to the genre Celtic punk. I doubt I'll dive too deep into it, but I'm happy that it's out there. Everything about this song, this band, and even the album cover screams New England Irishman. They were shooting for an aesthetic and knocked it out of the park. There's a kinetic energy to "Boston" that makes you want to break someone's nose, but only after a few pints of shitty lager. It's such a unique vibe, this track could not be ignored.

1983 "Owner of a Lonely Heart" - Yes

Yes! "Owner of a Lonely Heart" could be the bop of the century. It's wild, every individual element of this track stands out as possibly the best part of the song. The simple churn of the guitar during the verse, the futuristic synth keyboard, the catchiness of the chorus, the thumping bass, the cacklely guitar solo, EVERY PEICE of this goddammed song would be the best part of any other song. When I think of Yes I think of classic rock, but this track is not content with just being another classic rock track. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" reaches for the future in a way a lot of early '80s songs did, and the outcome is a song that feels like classic rock 2.0. Like Zeppelin got a firmware update. I LOVE IT!

1967 "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" - Frankie Valli

"Can't Take My Eyes off You" is yet another song that sounds much older than it actually is. It feels like a big band track from many years before its actual release and because of this, seems even more timeless than its contemporaries. Not many songs get away with 2 full-on choruses, back to back, but "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" does it and you didn't even notice it. This is probably still a hit song without the big "I love you baby ...." crescendo, but its inclusion is an exclamation point on an already sweet and memorable chorus.

2002 "The Scientist" - Coldplay

I should give Coldplay another chance. At the time I was much too agro of a teen to properly appreciate what they were doing, and in retrospect, their early stuff isn't as bad as I remember it being. "The Scientist" is different though. The Coldplay version sits in this weird pocket where, as a foundation, the song is solid, but Martin's voice, delivery, and harmonies sound like demo recordings. Like, this is the version of the song they recorded to shop around to other artists. I actually feel like I've heard a better version of the song, but I can't find it (trust me, I looked ... and no it's not the Glee version, nor the Corinne Bailey Rae version). It's hard for me to sing along to it without tearing up a little and its simplicity leaves the whole song open for modification. Maybe my favorite version of "The Scientist" simply hasn't been recorded yet, somebody get to work.

1962 "In a Sentimental Mood" - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane

This Jazz classic makes me want to smoke cigarettes and drink scotch in a dingy New York nightclub. I've never appreciated Jazz, but I've always enjoyed it when it's just playing in the background. Some of the percussion timing confuses me, and the improvisational nature of the craft makes me wonder if anything from the genre belongs on this list at all. Ellington's piano work on this specific recording is haunting, and the way it's placed with hesitation on the measure makes it tickle the spine. Layered over that story-of-a-performance is a Sax riff that could seduce the stripes off a zebra. Instrumental tracks are still a new thing for me, and finding the emotion in them can be difficult. Either I'm getting better at it, or "In a Sentimental Mood" emotes like no other. It's probably the latter.

That's list #24! Next is 25 which seems like a landmark or something, but I made a big hoopla for #20 a short 8 months ago. The next one will likely be business as usual, but that's ok because I LOVE doing this. Maybe I'll have the Spotify playlist ready for the next one. See you next time.

Cheers!

#duke ellington #john coltrane #coldplay #frankie valli #yes #dropkick murphys #al green #nothing more #the beatles #naked eyes #mark morrison

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piqueconcentration · 2 months

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Jitterbug Perfume - Immortality, Sex, and Discomfort

Originally posted January 31, 2024

As is apparently my preferred introduction: It has been quite a while since I have written anything on my computer, but as generally happens after I manage to read or, dare I say it, complete an actual, tangible book, I now am doing so. I type this knowing that Google docs is using my writing to train adolescent artificial intelligentsia, and theoretically I could make the switch to another software, but as is the case with Adobe, the monopoly’s Matrix-style robotic belly-button parasite keeps a firm hold on my psyche, with an extra bonding agent in the form of a powerful distaste for the effort that it would take to learn an entirely foreign user interface, just to marginally weaken the hold that Google has upon my intellectual property, when they are already in possession of basically all of my identifying information. They could probably construct an AI that would perfectly replicate my online presence, idiosyncrasies and ego included, and the only thing that they would have to do at this point to make convincing blog posts from my perspective is post them about as regularly as an agave flowers. If anything, if this particular post goes up on the internet at all, maybe that’s a red flag- I would have to be a mind outside of my own in order to return to a creative project even after my attention span’s honeymoon.

Whatever. I finished a book, and now I am compelled to write. Actually, I finished two books. The first was Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn, the first of the Mistborn trilogy, one that i meant to read way back in high school because some youtuber that I liked at the time had recommended it for its magic system- magic systems, as a concept, I would continue to grow increasingly interested in; the books would remain untouched on my shelf. The second was lent to me by one of my housemates, though I can’t remember the conversation that led to that happening- Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins.

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, the declaration about me being compelled to write after reading books is only true in the barest sense. Yes, I do feel an urge to write after being exposed to writing that I like, but by no means does that mean that I actually end up, or even begin for that matter, writing anything at all! Also, that same urge doesn’t just apply to writing. I consume manga at a frightening pace, and though by saying this it may imply the opposite sentiment: I do not say that in order to brag- the speed at which I go through webcomics and manga alike is, frankly, detrimental to my experience of the media in question, as I end up retaining almost nothing of what I have had my head immersed in so much that my neck develops knots that hold it at a painful right angle to my torso. I don’t really stop and breathe in the images that the mangaka probably spent hours and hours drawing; if anything, I mostly pay attention to the words written on the page which, in turn, presents a palpable irony in that the reason I have felt unable to read traditional books in recent years is that my attention span balks at walls of text!

Hey, authors! I won’t read your book even though I’d probably like it, because it doesn’t have any pictures in it! Show me your work once you’ve learned to draw!

Oh, holy shit the irony goes even deeper. Even though I feel that creative urge when I read manga, all of my attempts at making comics or even working to be skilled enough at drawing to feel confident in my capacity to do so are stopped in their tracks by the thus far insurmountable obstacle of not being able or willing to pay attention to the thing that I’m drawing for long enough to finish anything. Good lord.

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Anyway, the way Jitterbug Perfume was written really affected me. I still can’t tell if I liked it very much (the writing style), but to be fair, I really loved the way George Elliot’s Middlemarch was written, but I have been thus far unable to finish that book by virtue of its inexhaustibly prim density; therefore I suppose that the content of a book and its writing style tend to stay fairly separate considering my enjoyment, and the former aspect seems to have a stronger influence on whether or not I actually manage to make it to the back cover.

In this case, the content was excellent. Jitterbug Perfume was described to me as being about immortality, smell, sex, and beets, and I can’t honestly think of a better way to describe it. It’s a jigsaw puzzle of a story, if all of the pieces on the table were from different moments in time, and at the end, when the pieces fit, you are left with a complete picture that somehow shows an unbelievably cohesive, intimately personal tale, despite the massive scope, time-wise (there are very important events that take place before the advent of Christianity, and plot points of similar influence continue to happen all the way up until modern day).

Now that I think about it, the quality of maintaining a story’s characters and relationships, and especially keeping them as tantamount to the direction and tone of the piece, even when the scope of the story has expanded to include over two thousand years of history, even if that history is embellished upon or entirely invented, is an incredible achievement, and one that I think deserves unending praise. So frequently I find myself put off of pieces of media when, though I once enjoyed them for their characters’ dynamics or their dialogue or their writing styles, those aspects eventually were beaten out of the story by the growing scale of the events taking place. It becomes very difficult for me to continue to be invested in the little things that I like, and for that matter, for the author to continue stipulating on those little things’ presence, when suddenly the fate of the world is at stake, or the consequences of failure become so dire that there is no longer room in the work for mirth.

Jitterbug does this by keeping the story focused almost entirely upon a static set of characters. In all honesty, I do tend to find it a bit grating when a book throws pretty much all of the people that will be introduced over the duration at me all at once, and I also tend to get annoyed when a book switches perspectives back and forth frequently, as it is inevitable that I will be more interested in one of the followed points of view above all of the others (or vice versa, that one of the points of view is especially dull). Let it be known, though generally the book in question pays most attention to the characters that happen to be changing the most, it does do this.

The upside, though, is that even as the setting around the characters morphs drastically with all the changes associated with the world and culture since literally the year 1, the reader is still anchored in the everyday realities of the main characters. The tone of the story stays heavily reliant on each of their emotional states and their changing dynamics. The plot directly follows in the tracks of the characters’ desires and aspirations. As opposed to them being “interesting” people to be around in situations that they have no agency in, they are the driving force of the plot itself, and in this way the book can get away with a mind-boggling amount of in-universe time passing without it ever detaching the reader from the story, or impeding their willingness to care.

That feeling of detachment is exactly the sentiment behind me dropping To Your Eternity by Yoshitoki Oima, a manga that also tackles the concept of immortality, but in a way that I eventually found extraordinarily grating.

Some pieces of media, especially if they continue for a really long time, and even more especially if they are about characters that live much longer than a normal human lifespan, end up bestowing upon these characters a very particularly draining character arc: eventually becoming the most fucking boring people ever. This isn’t really, I don’t think, a product of repetition of personality beats -One Piece, for example, has a main cast that are each fairly one-note, but to me they remain compelling because of the unrelenting new situations, characters, and settings that they rotate through- rather, a common sentiment on the concept of immortality is that a person who is subjected to it will elect that it is a much smarter thing to avoid attachments and emotions as a way of staving off the pain of repeated loss. Combine that with the formula of introducing a bunch of new people, spending a lot of time with them, and then killing them off and meditating on how pointless it all was, and you will have on one hand: a philosophically engaging story about life’s purpose and value; and on the other: one that I will not be reading anymore. Fuck you.

Each time skip in To Your Eternity, my dejection would build, and even though I did enjoy the concepts therein quite a bit, I eventually quit reading when there was a time skip that jumped over so many years that the archaic setting I had been enjoying was gone, along with any characters aside from the protagonist that I may have liked, and I no longer had the will to continue.

Anyway, the point is that Jitterbug Perfume deftly avoids this problem by holding the human experience as an inalienable thru-line. Longer-lived characters don’t become harder to identify with- if anything they become more dear to the reader, as the sentiments that are the crux of their longevity are easily identified with. Their goals, whether they are aware of it or not, are the preservation of emotion and connection- things that the reader can presumably empathize with quite well.

The writing style I would describe as “irreverently confident and connotatively confusing.” The majority of the instances in which Robbins describes anything in this book are unrelentingly riddled with descriptors of every kind, and often of opposing kinds- many sentences use several adjectives to describe a single thing, and the adjectives often carry wildly different connotations. A single line may depict something as both gorgeous and disgusting, just by virtue of the words chosen. Jitterbug is more than willing to yank the reader back and forth like this, and the literary whiplash results in this sort of all-encompassing feeling of mild discomfort. The prose itself is captivating, but in less of the fashion of a ballet performance and more so like a lapdance that really walks the line between attractive and nauseating.

Regardless of whether or not I enjoy the style personally (I still can’t really tell, but I’m leaning toward the favorable side), it strikes me as being exactly what the author wanted. Off-putting, certainly, but one hundred percent intentional. A significant portion of the book’s subject matter consists of topics and sentiments that are at most culturally taboo, and at least playing fast and loose with modern morals and sentiments, especially when it comes to sex. This book, which I really enjoyed, which made me smile and frown and think and even write… will not shut the fuck up about sex.

Every character is steeped in it. Every metaphor is constructed with it. I feel like I could purchase a brand new copy of this fucking thing and its pages would already be stuck together. To get a sense of my feelings (historically) about this- one of my favorite quotes of a friend of mine is from when they asked me: “Hey [my name], would you rather have sex or be stabbed with a knife?”

My point about the “motion sickness” writing style being that it works in favor of the subject matter. The fact that the whole novel is written in a way that makes the reader a little nauseous, figuratively, creates a tone that is much more conducive to, well, not necessarily the intimate discussion of what our society views as crossing lines in the social sand or what should or should not be allowed, but rather the regular enunciation of kind of uncomfortable topics. Combined with a fairly unconcerned and playful tone, the book is able to deftly accept the discomfort that arises from a journey that holds sex as a central theme while progressing through several different settings -cultural and chronological- all with differing views and judgements about a traditionally awkward topic.

Anyway, I liked the book. There is a sentence in there that goes: “Like jugged bees, the funeral orations droned on (134).”

If you think you can make it past all of the disconcertingly flowery (ha, ha.) descriptions of bodily fluids for long enough to make it to that absolute banger of a quote, this may be one to check out.

#pique concentration #jitterbug perfume #tom robbins #to your eternity #fumetsu no anata e #book review #book recommendations #booklr #books #immortality #writing tropes

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crazygadgetshere · 2 months

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Download Now: George Orwell's Follow-Me Eye Papercraft from the 1984 book by Papermau

Who would have thought that in 2024, a 1949 book describing a dystopian world in 1984 could be so real? The “Ministries of Truth”, as well as the “Newspeak” have spread around the globe. This papercraft pays homage (contains some irony) all “Ministries of Truth”, around the globe. “1984”, a dystopian book written by George Orwell in 1949, is the subject of this papercraft. The book is set in a…

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uncleasad · 5 months

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In Dickinson 1x05, things got real—real in the manner of a bomb exploding in the midst of one’s life.

I do appreciate the series’s uncanny ability to answer the questions I raise in a previous episode (the publication of Emily’s poem in the college literary magazine, in this case), as well as unexpectedly turn things completely on their heads!

I misjudged the urgency of George’s pursuit, for one. By forcing the question, he placed the bomb. Likewise Emily, by forcing the issue of Henry playing Othello, lit the fuse, and all that was left was for time to quickly tick by and blow up Emily and George’s friendship…and the entire Shakespeare club. (Speaking of forcing…what’s up with Sue’s sketchy boss? 😳)

I appreciated the interplay between all of the characters. Emily and Austin, the younger generation, more Radical than their father. George, with Southern relatives—and a comment about Thanksgiving dinner that remains relevant still today—a milquetoast moderate, like Edward (who I presume comes to his position via lived experience that the younger generation lacked, rather than a particular sympathy for slave-owning kin). (As an aside, the racial and social—yet all political—undertones of this episode really shined, more clearly and strongly than any previous episode, and held a mirror to our current world. The Fugitive Slave Act may as well be any of a number of vigilante-style laws passed of late in (mostly) former Confederate states over abortion and migrants/asylum seekers, for one.)

Though George and Edward are aligned on appeasement of the southern states, they are not aligned on George’s encouragement of Emily’s “wilder notions”—the irony of which, I fear, was not lost on Mrs Dickinson. (In terms of dishing cruelty, Edward wins this time around, musing in front of his daughter and his wife that he would prefer the life of a spinster to that of a wife, for the greater freedom the former offered, at once slighting his wife and also further encouraging Emily’s “wilder notions.” Edward’s complex relationship with his daughter remains fascinating; why does he fear, as his wife alludes, to let his daughter go? There’s also an interesting parallel between the historical Mrs Dickinson, whom Edward courted quite strongly, but who, while fond of Edward to some degree, seemed only to resignedly accept his proposal, and her daughter Emily and her pursuit by George—the key difference being that Emily fille has so far held out and refused marriage.)

I appreciated the way that Emily and Austin (so far, or at the moment, at least) do not seem to be letting their love triangle with Sue come between them—mild jealousy over the amount of correspondence, yes, but Austin either backed up Emily or avoided siding against her on the major questions of the episode, and Emily bent her “only women should portray women to make up for past exclusion” rule to let Austin play Desdemona. And though Sue has written Austin back twice compared to Emily zero, I believe we are to see that it is Emily’s letters she longs to receive. (And, again, there’s that sketchy boss 😳)

The pinnacle of the hour belongs to Henry, as he—under peril of being wrongfully seized by fugitive slave hunters—reminds Emily—and us—that sitting in the comfort of our homes, eating cake and reading Shakespeare (or watching it) while decrying the evils and injustices of the way the world is—“the world shouldn’t be like this”—is a privilege those living in the world, and feeling those injustices as boot pressing on their backs, do not have.

(Emily was right, though, that Othello could only be properly comprehended when one who understood his life portrayed him. Henry was masterful, and yet…)

The underlying theme of the episode, the thread tying everything together, was that of being seen. As Emily so harshly reminds George, he does’t know her, he doesn’t listen to her, he doesn’t see her as who she is (instead of his fantasy)…which is followed up, masterfully, by Henry’s comments to Emily, in kinder, gentler language, reminding her that she does not see him, at least not fully, and the perils he lives under every single day. (One might also make an argument that Emily doesn’t see George and the depth of his love for her; it’s hard to tell exactly how much is her not seeing him vs him not seeing her.) Edward doesn’t see Mrs Dickinson, as his “spinster vs wife” comments in front of her make cruelly clear. In a comic-relief-but-truly-sad way, Lavinia reminds us that she is not seen by her family, either, when Emily laughs down the suggestion of reading The Taming of the Shrew; who would want to read a play about a long-suffering younger sister who cannot marry until her not-at-all-eager older sister does? Even Austin’s insistence on playing Desdemona reminds us that no one sees his love for Sue. And Sue, well, Sue is in Boston being a governess to a very sketchy man’s children because her best friend/lover and her fiancé/older brother of her best friend can’t see her in their battle over her affections…

This feels like the strongest episode so far, and hopefully a sign of things to come. (Also, apparently, this post is a sign of how much my academic brain has been longing for action 😂)

#musings #Dickinson #Dickinson 1x05 #Emily Dickinson #Austin Dickinson #George Gould #Edward Dickinson #Emily Norcross Dickinson #Henry (Dickinson)#Lavinia Dickinson #Sue Gilbert #Fugitive Slave Act #Othello #EmiSue

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